- House music is littered with funky sounding aliases, and 'Onionz' is one of the funkiest. Andrew Venagas' records would stand out for this reason alone, but he's also had a slew of solo and collab productions which have earned him a solid reputation in house circles. His latest project is two remix twelves of 'Woman Of the Sun', a rather crude piece of maxed-out, clubby house with a ragga vocal courtesy of El Feco. Truth be told, Onionz has been capable of far better moments - check out his San Francisco bassline house on Siesta and Camouflage for the evidence.
But onto the remixes. Funk D'Void is enjoying a new lease on life under his deep house moniker Francois Dubois, and he makes fair game of the track. Jacking beats and hooky key stabs show that if it's done well, keeping it simple is a good rule of thumb when it comes to making club music.
Jake Childs' remix, unfortunately, is more of an electrohouse earache deserving of a long-range shot into the wastepaper basket. Those ragga vocals make a hamfisted effort at being pukka but they're hardly irie, irie mon. I doubt the San-Fran house posse will be bopping to this one.
That awful Ragga snippet becomes a real nuisance in Bryan Zentz's euro techno offering. Built around a dubbed out synth, it'll no doubt please somebody somewhere harking back to the heyday of Intec.
Finally Magik Johnson steps up to add his freaky house flavas, which actually have more in common with Onionz' San-Fran days than the original mix. Bugged out bass and a dope vibe should make this track a feature in sets from the likes of Yousef and Derrick Carter.
Thumbs up for Francois Dubois and Magik Johnson, but you can't help but wonder if the inclusion of a better vocal would have served this package better.
TracklistA1 Onionz - Woman Of The Sun (Francois Dubois Sunshine Vocal)
A2 Onionz - Woman Of The Sun (Jake Childs Worshipper Mix)
B1 Onionz - Woman Of The Sun (Magik Johnson Remix)
B2 Onionz - Woman Of The Sun (Bryan Zentz Disruptor Dub)